


A Study in Time and Relative Dimension in Space

by FinalSolution



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover, Gen, Kidlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalSolution/pseuds/FinalSolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock claims the facets of the universe are unimportant to him, but the truth is, he didn't always consider them useless lines of data.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Time and Relative Dimension in Space

The sound of a scuffle could be heard in the house upstairs, a mixture of thuds and ear-pounding footsteps sprinting across the floorboards. If anyone in the home cared, they made no sign of it.

"Stop being so difficult!" shouted one voice. "Don't make me call Mummy!"

"Fat," seethed another voice, notably younger. A door opened, and a young boy clad in his school clothes and a makeshift pirate hat careened down the staircase, errant curls bouncing as he moved. A moment later an older, taller boy emerged from the doorway, his hair disheveled, his face mostly calm save for the look of cool vexation set in his jaw that was there only if someone were looking hard enough for it.

"Stop stampeding around the place like a wildebeest, Sherlock."

The younger child, Sherlock, skidded to a stop and whirled on his heels. He raised one small hand, which gripped an equally small knife (that child welfare would be horrified to know wasn't a fake, but Sherlock wouldn't stop complaining until he had a genuine pirate's weapon) and pointed it at his brother. "You don't tell me what to do."

Mycroft gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. "Fine. But you will be reprimanded when - "

"Like they give a piss."

"Sherlock!"

Without another word, Sherlock spun back around and clopped loudly (with full intent of annoying his brother further) to the door and outside. If Mycroft wasn't going to let him do as he pleased, he would just go elsewhere.

 

\----

It was late by the time Sherlock returned home, dusk already melting into a black sky scattered with pinpricks of stars. The night air was warm on his skin, and he was hesitant to return to the cold house - chillingly cold, he thought - but he knew if he didn't return at some point, Mycroft or one of the housekeepers may do something stupid, like report him missing. He would have much preferred to stay outside and stargaze. True, he liked being a pirate, but he liked the idea of being an astronaut almost as much. 

He moved at the pace of molasses up the front steps toward the door, his mind already bracing for the scolding he'd endure once inside, but froze to a halt just when his free hand had reached the door handle.

There was a peculiar noise behind him, sort of a high-sounding whirring, that made Sherlock crane his neck to look back over his shoulder. His eyes darted up the street and back down, once, twice, he couldn't see anything that could have produced that frequency, the entire street was quiet but -

Something was out of place. What? Sherlock scrunched his nose as he tried to place it, examining his surroundings again for a few moments, processing information. So concentrated on this was he that he didn't notice the front door had opened, and Mycroft was watching him with a silent curiosity.

After some seconds, he spoke. "What ever are you doing?" he drawled. 

Sherlock's head snapped back around and his gaze went up to his brother's face. "Nothing. I thought I - No, nothing." He elbowed his way past the taller boy, Mycroft making way to avoid Sherlock's sharp joints and sharper pirate blade, which the younger still had clutched in one hand. The hat, Mycroft noted, was missing.

"Off to bed then?" he called. He was answered with a quiet hum of affirmation and the sound of Sherlock ascending the staircase, then closing his bedroom door behind him.

Once in his bedroom - which was very _blue_ in color and decorated with a half naval, half intergalactic theme - Sherlock tossed his blade carelessly onto the floor and gave a kick, sending it skidding under his bed. He yanked off his shoes, splattered with wet grass from his adventures, shimmied out of his shorts in exchange for a pair of pyjama bottoms, then padded over to his window. He pulled back the curtain with a sense of agitation, sure that whatever was to be found was likely gone now, but his eyes scanned again, bright and alert. They fell to a rest just across the street, to an unfamiliar sight just next to one of the bright streetlamps that lit the road in an off-yellow hue.

Sherlock Holmes noticed everything. Or, just about everything, anyway, certainly a great deal more than other children his age did, and even a good number of adults. He was one hundred percent sure there had not been a police call box sitting there before today. Actually, he was sure it hadn't been sitting there a few _hours_ ago.

Naturally, he had to investigate. He enjoyed playing pirates, and the idea of stars was nice, but it wasn't quite as fun or thrilling as being a detective. Sherlock went to his night table and opened the drawer, rummaged around for a minute before retrieving what he was looking for - a small pocket magnifier. With a satisfied grin, he slammed the drawer shut and scampered from the room, down the hallway and down the stairs, taking two at a time, moving as quickly as his legs would allow him.

Sherlock came to a halt at the door, took hold of it and gave a tug, flinging it open - and stopped.

Standing in front of him with a hand raised as though he had only just been about to knock was a rather tall man in rather outdated clothing for his age, and who immediately made Sherlock think of an awkward, gangling giraffe. His hair was dark and full, his jaw a bit too square, and was accentuated by - 

Sherlock quirked a judgmental eyebrow. Who the heck wore bowties anymore?

"Oh!" he cried, taken by surprise. "You're a bit smaller than I imagined you'd be." His eyes darted up, then back to Sherlock, then he jutted his neck forward just enough that he was scarcely in the door, glancing around quickly before retracting himself ( _giraffe_ , Sherlock thought again). His right hand was still awkwardly raised in a loose fist, and only then did he think to move it, turning it into a open-handed wave as he beamed down at the child before him that was clad in his t-shirt and pyjamas and armed with a magnifying glass. 

"Well then, hello, pleasure to meet you. I'm the Doctor."

 

"Whose doctor?" the young Holmes asked curtly, eyeing the strange man with more intent than a nine-year-old should be looking at an adult with.

The man's face fell, his giddy look overcome with something like exasperation. "Leave it to you to not ask it the right way," he grumbled, looking comically disappointed. "Never mind. Just the Doctor. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you."

"Why couldn't you?" Sherlock pushed.

"I said don't ask!"

"Nobody tells me what to do!"

"Do you know how old I am?!" the man cried. "One thousand!" He paused, a thoughtful look coming over him, before he amended, "One thousand and twelve."

_That explains a lot,_ Sherlock thought. 

"So," he continued, "that makes me older, and the adult, and if I say children shouldn't ask silly questions, then they shouldn't ask silly questions."

"You sure aren't much authority on what's silly and what isn't," Sherlock quipped. "Nice tweed and neckwear."

The man - the Doctor, Sherlock reminded himself - sniffed and reached up with both hands, adjusting the navy bowtie at his neck. "They're cool," he said, though Sherlock wasn't sure if the Doctor was speaking to him or himself. He cast his eyes down at Sherlock again. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"A strange man shows up at my door after dark who won't tell me his name and I'm to invite him in?"

"It's polite."

"It's odd." Sherlock's voice was clipped. 

"You're odd." The Doctor frowned down at him. 

_One thousand and tweleve,_ Sherlock remembered. God, it was like arguing with a child. He squinted his eyes up at the man and slid to the side to allow him to enter, then closed the door behind him. Without asking where it was, the Doctor instinctively made a beeline for the kitchen. Sherlock reluctantly followed. This was turning into an interesting evening indeed.

"What are you doing here?" he tried as the Doctor began opening various cupboards and closing them again, making more racket than Sherlock thought necessary.

"Looking for tea."

The child sighed. "I mean at my house. Why were you at my door?"

"Well," the Doctor said, "I was searching for - aha!" It sounded like he had succeeded in finding his tea. "Excellent. Kettle?"

Sherlock pointed to the electric kettle sitting on the counter. When the Doctor was silent, he cleared his throat. "Searching for?"

"Oh, right." Another bang as he retrieved a cup and placed in a teabag, then he gave a quick spin and faced Sherlock, leaping up to sit on the counter top while he waited for the kettle to boil. "Well, actually, I was looking for you. But," and his face became a bit contorted, "not quite ... like this."

Sherlock considered himself an intelligent boy, he really did, but he had no idea what this man was going on about. He told him as much. "What do you mean 'not quite like this'? How else would you expect to find me?"

"Well, a bit taller for one. I'd say sulkier but... You seem to have that bit down just fine. It's a bit complicated."

"I can do complicated."

"Yes." The Doctor wriggled and twisted, pouring the now-hot water over his teabag, not bothering to get down from his perch. For a supposed adult, he didn't very much act like one. "Wrong you. Was hoping for the one with the scarf. Preferably without the - oh, never mind."

"You're talking in circles," Sherlock sulked. At this, the Doctor now moved from his seat on the counter, and went over to the kitchen window that lay facing the street. He gestured, and Sherlock walked over to see what he was pointing at.

"You see that?"

"The call box?"

"That very one, yes. It's a ship."

"I know ships," Sherlock said matter-of-factly, "and that isn't one." He was young, but not gullible.

"Spaceship," the Doctor clarified.

"Still doesn't look like a spaceship."

"Well, it is," the Doctor insisted, looking down at Sherlock, a hint of something giddy in his expression. "She's a brilliant thing. Can go anywhere in time or space as you please. I honed in on your timeline but I, ah, well. It seems I missed my mark by about..." Here he paused and bent down to scrutinize Sherlock, eyes skittering up and down, and then his hand produced something from his pocket that most definitely looked like it belonged in a top secret government lab; he gave it a flick and it buzzed to life, glowing an eerie green color as the Doctor waved it about, first in Sherlock's face and then down his torso and back up again. He moved the device away from Sherlock and toward his own face, studying it for a moment before giving another quick flick and placing it back in his pocket.

"Ten, twelve years. Give or take."

"Seems like quite a mark to miss."

"I've managed worse," he replied, as though it were something to boast about. "Once intended to land straight in Pope Benny's chambers and ended up in Pompeii. Got to witness the volcano and everything." Sherlock watched the man's face darken, as though he were remembering something he wasn't very keen on, but in a flash the childish expression was back.

"So if that's a spaceship, and you're so old - "

"Alien," the Doctor supplied, grinning even as he said it. 

"Right." Lazy eyes studied the giraffe before Sherlock turned and made for the doorway with a casual, "Nutter."

"Oi! I can show you!"

Sherlock thought he might say that. He fought to suppress a triumphant smirk as he turned his head to look back at the Doctor. "Well then, show me." 

 

\----

"I told you!"

Sherlock was standing in the entryway of the ship - God, it really _was_ a ship - unable to process exactly what his eyes were taking in; it was information overload, and his brain felt like it would burst with any second at the complete... the complete...

"This is impossible," he blurted out. 

"Not impossible, just not highly likely. Say hello to the TARDIS!" The Doctor did a little twirl as he said the ship's name, hands spread wide as though giving a grand demonstration. "Isn't she a beaut?"

"That's .... What sort of name is that? TARDIS? It sounds like -"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space," the Doctor interrupted before Sherlock could finish his quite derogatory statement. 

Sherlock moved to the centre of the machine, running his small hands tenderly along the console, carefully studying and cataloging all of the dials and buttons, their various colors, sizes and textures, the humming sounds that emitted from the machine as though it were reacting to his touch. His hand stopped on a contraption that he could only guess as a date input, and sure enough, it had the exact date and time glowing harshly on an overhead television-like display. He tore his eyes away and faced the Doctor, who was watching him with unrestrained glee. Sherlock had a feeling he wasn't the first person to be given this demonstration, and suddenly knew the alien liked the showing off. Well, that was one thing they had in common.

"Show me how it works."

"I thought you'd say that! Be happy to - but pyjamas aren't exactly proper attire for time-travel, are they? Want a change first?"

Sherlock glanced down at his bottoms, then looked back up and shrugged. "I don't see what for."

"Oh, go on, go on," the giraffe urged, now moving to usher Sherlock toward the door. "Quickly, quickly, go put on some trousers and shoes. I need to do some calibrating anyway - like I said, locked onto the right person, wrong time, needs a bit of a tweak, shouldn't take more than a minute. Well, hurry up!" He was shooing Sherlock out now, literally making the waving motion with his hands. "I've still got places to be, Sherlock Holmes, but if you're quick about it, we'll make a detour, I'll drop you back home, and then be on my way. You're a fan of pirates if I recall, yes?"

"How did you - "

"Don't ask! Just hurry up!"

And so Sherlock hurried. He sprinted back to the house, bound up the stairs to his room, and rushed to change into a pair of trousers and to find the shoes he had kicked off earlier. His logical brain was telling him that this was silly, it must be a dream, yes, that was it, he was asleep. But, being the child he was, the rest of him was elated at the idea of such a magnificent adventure. Time travel! Maybe he could get the Doctor to take him to another planet as well. He did say it could travel in space as well, after all.

As the possibilities were forming in his mind, the same whirring noise he had heard earlier in the night came dancing to his ears, and it sent him into a panic, though at first he didn't' know why. With one shoe on and the other held in his hand he ran to the window just in time to catch a glimpse of the police box _vanishing in thin air_. Sherlock dropped his shoe, heaved his window open with both hands and stuck his neck - indeed, almost half of his body - outside. "Wait! Doctor!"

He didn't know what he expected. The TARDIS to instantly re-materialize? He was sure nobody, let alone the alien inside the blue box, could hear him over the loud ruckus the stupid machine made.

He didn't sleep that night. He sat up well after sunrise, sitting at his desk, occupying himself with his astronomy books while keeping his eyes and ears open for any sight or sound of the TARDIS's return. He gave up when the rest of his household began to come to life for the new day, and he felt like a fool for getting his hopes up. He slammed his book closed on his desk and stood, making his way to his bed in quick, long and tense strides that conveyed his anger. He stopped as he passed by a wall chart that mapped out various star constellations and the planets of the solar system. Without thinking, Sherlock shot a hand out, gripped the glossy paper roughly, and jerked it from the wall with a loud rip. 

 

\----

"Look," Sherlock interjected. He lay sprawled on the couch in 221B, a newspaper laying open on his chest, forgotten. It was two in the afternoon and the man hadn't even bothered to dress himself for the day, still garbed in his grey pyjama bottoms, a t-shirt, and his usual blue dressing gown, the latter of which coiled him like a cocoon before the excess fell limply over the side of the couch.

John was perched in Sherlock's chair, a look of irritation appearing to be permanently plastered to his face. 

"I don't care about who's Prime Minister, or who's sleeping with who -"

"Or that the earth revolves around the sun."

"Oh, God, not that again. It's not important." Sherlock's head lolled to the side in dramatic fashion as he spoke, then fell back as he closed his eyes shut.

"Not important? It's primary school stuff, Sherlock. _How_ can you not know that?" Sherlock wasn't sure for a moment if John was closer to being angry with him (and for something so ridiculous, of all things) or closer to outright laughing at him.

"It's likely I did, but I deleted it."

"Deleted it?"

"Yes, yes, deleted it!" Sherlock jolted upright, swinging his long legs over the side of the couch and sitting to face John. "What's so important about it, anyway? Whether or not we revolve around the sun, or the moon, or go 'round and 'round the garden like a teddy bear, it wouldn't make any difference!" 

"I daresay it would," John answered with a barely held-in-check chortle. Right, so, he was closer to laughing. Well _that_ made things better.

Sherlock flicked his hands in a dismissive motion and sighed, agitation plain on his features. "If you must know," he went on, cutting his eyes back to John, "I did used to know it. Had a bit of a fascination as a child. But then I grew up."

"What's that mean?" John asked, one eyebrow lifting with curiosity.

"It means I realized how utterly pointless it was. Daydreaming about stars - it's a child's game, and I became bored with it. Who the hell wants to know about the universe anyway? It's a load of rubbish."

His words came out quickly, as they did when his mind was working at top speed during a case and rattling off his deductions, and for a brief moment, John thought he could sense the sound of something bitter in Sherlock's voice. He decided not to dwell on it. He could almost picture Sherlock being teased by his brother about his obsession with constellations and coming to the conclusion that such things were a waste of time. 

Unbeknownst to John, that was very close to the version Sherlock had even implanted into his own head. After all, how logical was it to believe you had been stood up by a time-travelling space alien in a blue police box?

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and not Brit-picked, so if you spot something that glares at you, do let me know! This is my first baby foray into crossover fics, but once I got the idea, I had to put it down somewhere. I may expand on it and make it into a series, but I'm undecided at the moment.


End file.
